I am sure that you have been hearing about Virtualization and asking yourself what exactly is this and why should I even care. Is this one of those new buzzwords that seems to be all over the news and fades away a few weeks later?

Virtualization is important because it allows you to do more with less. I am sure you are thinking that you have heard this one before and the results are never good. Can you really ever do more with less?

The simple story is that virtualization allows one computer to do the job of multiple computers. You might have a server today that is running your email server. 99% of the time it has additional capacity that is untapped and unused. Virtualization takes that machine and breaks (for all intensive purposes) it into multiple servers.

Great. So the box that was running my email server is now running my database. How does that save me money or allow me to do more with less?

By breaking the “one application to one server” model, you can pool servers together onto a single box. This means you can reduce the physical number of servers and related IT hardware.

Since you are reducing the number of servers, you have fewer service contracts. Each server today usually has its own service contract - regardless of how well utilized the server is.

Having less servers means less real estate, power and cooling requirements. Most servers are in use only 8 to 15% of the time they are powered on, but consume 60 to 90% of the normal workload power even when idle. By consolidating physical servers onto a single box, you can increase hardware utilization to as much as 85%, saving power 24x7.

Using Virtualization, you can provision a server in minutes. This means that should you need a new server to test an application, you can configure and deploy without new hardware and in a fraction of the time.

You can run multiple operating systems such as Windows, Linux and Macintosh on the same server. This means that if you have to support an application from ten years ago, you can run it on the same server as your email server, in a protected and separate virtual server.

Migrating existing servers is safe and simple.

Virtualization reduces the number of "standby" servers required in a Disaster Recovery Site and helps to minimize downtime with rapid deployment of new virtual machines.

The Fortune 100 is using virtualization to reduce costs while increasing the efficiency, utilization and flexibility of their existing computer hardware. You don’t have to be a Fortune class company to get the benefits of virtualization.

We work with the top vendors in Virtualization including Microsoft, Citrix, VMWare and Parallels and can demonstrate to you how this exciting new technology can change the way you do business, while saving you real money. Give us a call if you are interesting in hearing how we can apply the benefits of virtualization to your business.